Padstow Harbour

Padstow Harbour

Padstow is a charming working fishing port surrounded by glorious sandy beaches, at the head of the Camel River. Watching the everyday ebb and flow of harbour life is a perfect way to spend a day. This foodie destination with popular eateries such as Rick Stein’s Seafood Restaurant, is the start and end point for the Camel Cycle Trail and a good base for water sports.

Padstow has long been a busy port and part of the port of Padstow was the port of Wadebridge. Wadebridge was a thriving port for many years, the railway being there 50 years before it came along the present Camel Trail to Padstow. Padstow and the estuary, like everything else, is continually evolving and emerging, and with the help of the Harbour Commissioners and the hard work of the staff, we hope it will improve year on year.

The harbour is capable of handling cargo vessels of up to 2000 gross tons but only accommodates bulk cargoes such as sand, roadstone etc. Pilotage is compulsory for all vessels over 30 metres and the pilot boards 3 cables east of Stepper Point. Padstow has a thriving fishing fleet landing catches of fish, crabs and lobsters.

Padstow Harbour Commissioners were founded by an Act of Parliament under Queen Victoria in 1844. They replaced the earlier Padstow Harbour Association, a board of men who ran the port.

The port far predates the Commissioners. Padstow grew up within a creek on the Western bank of the River Camel, the head of the creek being near to where the Parish church now stands. As the port grew, the town was built on raised reclaimed land often without footings until the present day. The Inner Quays and Strand were built in 1538, at which time the port was the Inner Basin, now defined by the gate with a Quay where the Red Brick Building now stands, a pier on the southern side, and peripheral shipyards.

The railway arrived in 1899, and reclaimed a stretch of land at the southern end of the harbour, built using one of Padstow’s shipbuilding yard walls as a retaining wall. With the ability to transport fish quickly to London’s Billingsgate Fish Market via the railway, more trawlers started using the port and the demand for shelter was such that the present-day dock was built in 1910. In 1932 the New Pier was built to protect vessels within the Inner Basin, as trawlers moored the wires that the trawlers were mooring with were parting due to the “run” generated by the ground sea, normally when the wind was from the south west.

Padstow has always had one major problem – on the equinoctial spring tides, it floods. In 1988 this problem was addressed and over the period of two years, the present day flood-defence scheme was built – sheet piling and extending the pier in the Inner Basin, building a tidal gate and raising the walls on Langford’s Quay. The result is that since the gate was put in the town has not flooded. The by-product of this scheme is that the Inner Harbour is now kept wet, providing Marina conditions for visiting craft, whereas prior to this the harbour would dry on every ebb tide.